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Game of the Month - April

Welcome once again to our regular 'Game of the Month' featurette, where we take a look over the past thirty days and arbitrarily judge what we think is this month’s best game. April is a bit of an odd one, it has to be said… not a hell of a lot of big titles, although it was a good month for the Xbox Live Arcade, with top titles such as Fez and Trials Evolution smashing onto the scene.

Presents me with a bit of a quandary though, as the game(s) I’d personally give the award to isn’t technically the highest scoring game this month. Anyway, let’s take a look at some of this month’s highlights…

Botanicula (PC)

Not one I’d personally gravitate towards, Amanita Design’s latest adventure game certainly knocked Chris Capel off his feet. It’s a shame that this is only a PC release, as it sounds like this would also have been a good addition to the console arcade line-up this month, but never mind. I’ll let Chris tell you why you should pick it up:

"If you can pull yourself away from killing things for a few hours to play a sweet, adorable, bizarre, funny, joyful game, you owe it to yourself to buy Botanicula. It’s not massively challenging and it only really lasts four hours, but you’ll have a smile on your face for the entire time – and often a good laugh too. The score on the right is pretty rough – in terms of the enjoyment to playing time ratio the game deserves higher, but being critical I have to give Botanicula less than I want to. Sometimes I hate myself. It may say 8.5, but take it as a JOY FACTOR of 10 okay? Now then, excuse me while I massage this smile off my face, I can’t seem to turn it off."

The ‘big’ release of this month, after some kerfuffle between Namco Bandai and CD Projekt RED over who actually owned the rights to publish the Xbox 360 version, we finally got the Xbox 360 version (Namco won, in case you didn’t know), complete with additional content and improvements.

Chris Capel was all over the PC release last year, and he was all over this release as well. In short, he enjoyed it, however bear in mind all of the additional content and improvements have been added to the PC version anyway… but then it’s a beast on the PC, so the console version is probably more accessible. Anyway, here’s what Chris had to say:

“Nevertheless this is an RPG you really have to own, and if you’ve been holding off for the console version rest assured you’ll be getting a smooth experience that was well worth the year-long wait. The Witcher 2 itself is still an incredible title that really makes you feel that you’re having an impact on the people and politics of this world, and the Enhanced Edition only makes it better. Have you bought it yet? Well, do so. Go on, Amazon’s right around the corner.”

HD Collections seem to be a bit of a ‘thing’ at the moment for Sony… ICO, Shadow of the Colossus… not that I mind, but I can’t help but worry these collections are trying to fill the gap where new exclusive titles should be. The Devil May Cry HD Collection is the latest to come out (personally, just give me the Zone of the Enders Collection and I can go home happy), and whilst it didn’t rate amazingly with our reviewer, he did admit this is one of the more well-made collections. In Alex’s words:

“There are small issues with the HD conversion – especially in the menus – but this still feels like one of the more accomplished HD collections this generation. Some people may want to pretend it only contains two games, though – and I understand that sentiment.”

Our runner up goes to Fez, which even though was technically the highest scoring release on Strategy Informer this month, I’ve decided to give it to someone else. Why? Because I said so. Seriously though, we’ll get to that. Fez is still a fantastic little title though, which isn’t surprising since it won two Independent Game Festival awards before it was even released. James Day was certainly taken with it, here’s what he had to say:

“It's one of the those rare titles that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone regardless of gaming experience. Not only is it unique and beautiful to behold, the lack of death penalties and time limits mean it's easy to pick up, play and enjoy at whatever pace the player demands. As if that wasn't enough, it's also selling at the lower price tier of 800 Microsoft Points (roughly £7 / €10) on Xbox Live Arcade. It's an absolute must-buy and, despite it still being early in 2012, a strong contender for indie game of the year.”

This month’s award goes to Trials Evolution, mainly for the reasons Nick outlined in his review, but also because it’s pretty for an Arcade game. Much like I Am Alive, Ubisoft have been pushing the boundaries of what an Arcade release can actually ‘be’, and the Trials sequel is one of the most addictive and content filled release we’ve seen since Section 8: Prejudice. A definite champion of the XBLA platform at the moment. Don’t get us wrong – games like Fez and Botanicula are great, and always welcome, but personally I’d like to see more games like Trails… and I don’t even like racing games, usually. Here’s what Nick had to say about it:

“Evolution’s main strength comes from ambition. It’s definitely a fully-fledged, weighty sequel. With a superb array of courses, newly-introduced multiplayer and a limitless track editor, 1200 MSP remains an absolute steal. You’ll tell yourself one more go, but in the end, that jar keeps on filling up.”

Thank you for joining this month. Any comments or questions, or even your own suggestions for what deserves GOTM, feel free to post below. There’s bound to be games that we’ve missed, but to keep things simple I only go by what Strategy Informer writers have actually played and written about. Until next time.